


Ghost Trio

by thursdaysisters



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bottom!Sherlock, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Top!Watson, black magic, lovecraft, stoned!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdaysisters/pseuds/thursdaysisters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detoxing while working on a case, Holmes discovers a new drug, has a hallucinatory one-night-stand with Watson, and finds himself up against Eugene Onegin, the fabulous KGB agent and leader of a Cthonic death cult.  Rated for slash, some language, drug use, and violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ch. 1

Holmes clicked his pen and pointed it at the first witness, still staring at the papers in his lap. He didn't want to risk making eye contact just yet. "You were hired for the deceased's birthday party?"

The kid swallowed nervously, an eighteen-year-old rent boy carefully dressed to pass for older and hoping to last long enough to attract a rich London widow. Normally Holmes wouldn't have bothered himself with the murder of a strip club owner, but his narcotic supply had been cut off by skirmishes in the latest sandbox oil war, and any work was better then the misery of detox.

"You were paid in tips?" Holmes asked.

"Um, no, flat fee."

"Check?"

"Cash. Everything was done in cash, the owner didn't like bothering with computers."

Holmes 'hmmed' to himself, scribbling in the margin and wondering how the owner killed himself. Bourgeois businessmen weren't assassinated cleanly in their beds on their birthday. He would have to wait for the coroner's report to prove a drug overdose, but his brain was itching to know why, and this doe-eyed idiot sitting across his desk was the best lead so far.

One of the police officers poked at a framed picture of John, lifting it off the mantelpiece and sneezing on the glass. "Sorry," he muttered, pulling a filthy kerchief from his pocket, "Bloody storm."

Holmes pulled his coat tight around his shoulders, his eyes flicking over to the window as his guts twisted on themselves. He couldn't even see the cars in the street for all the rain, and considered sending a taxi to John's clinic to get him home safely.

"Who else was at the party?" Holmes asked.

He shrugged, discretion came with the job. "People with money."

"Anybody there out of place?" Holmes asked, looking up finally.

Poor kid, he'd never been in real trouble before. His eyes watered under the detective's scrutiny. "...I don't know."

"I need a name."

He let the silence stretch, and eventually the kid clutched his hair and his eyes glistened. "I'm sorry," he said, swiping at a stray tear, "My head's killing me, been killing me all day."

Holmes noticed his face, the rawness around his eyes, his lips curling at the greasy handprints the boy was leaving all over his desk. John had just polished it that morning, and he'd hoped to keep it tidy.

He sighed, opening a small drawer filled with plastic baggies. He had some sympathy for his fellow drug addicts. "Something for the pain?" he asked, placing four yellow pills on the desk.

The dancer eyed them hungrily, but Holmes kept his hand on them. He loved this part of the game. "Did he break up with his girlfriend?"

The boy bit his lip, thinking. "No."

Holmes slid one pill across. "Was he being blackmailed?"

"I don't think..." he said, cupping the second pill in his hand.

"Did he run into the law?"

"No," he said, shaking his head and speaking much more naturally now that Beauty's Sleep rested in his lap, "He didn't screw around."

Holmes fingered the last pill. He had a dangerous spectrum of prescription drugs in his apartment, and if John weren't constantly stopping in at night to eat and hide all the bullets, he'd have locked the bedroom from the inside and doped himself into a fugue state. "Did he owe anyone money?"

The boy breathed in slowly, considering. "You'd have to ask his bodyguard."

"He had a _bodyguard?_ " Holmes asked, narrowing his eyes at a policeman, who hurriedly set down a pencil he'd been using to clean his ear.

"Yeah, they traveled together for bank deliveries, probably they made a few, um, _deposits_ every month."

_You mean they bribed members of the zoning committee_ , Holmes thought, rubbing his temples as the rain pounded against the window glass. Odds were good that someone, somewhere in this area, was being injured in a motorcycle accident, which meant John might not be home for _hours._

He waved him away, plucking the phone from it's cradle to ask Scotland Yard how soon they could get the bodyguard to his place for questioning. Lifting his shoe, he rolled the offending earwax pencil into the waste basket, and wiped his heel on the carpet. As soon as everyone left, he slumped in the chair, aching all over and sick from the stink of men's aftershave. If he could just be alone for a little while...

"Hello, you're still working?"

Holmes looked up at the door, and sat a little straighter. "I thought you were on call."

John shook out his umbrella. "The interns can manage. We had some hooligans wheeled in from a game fight, but the morphine should keep them down til tomorrow."

Holmes pretended to busy himself with papers. "Are you going straight to bed?"

"I thought I'd eat first," he said, filling the kettle from the tap, "What about you, have you had anything?"

He tried to think of anything appetizing, and his guts turned to battery acid. "I'm good, thank you."

He was looking away when John approached, and wasn't prepared when a cool hand pressed against his forehead.

"You're running hot," he said, concerned, "How long have you been sitting in this room, it's freezing."

"It's nothing." he said, trying not to lean into his hand. He already felt a thousand times better, and wished John would keep talking. He'd been listening to people all day, yet now he didn't seem to mind the company.

John took his hand away. For all he knew Holmes was testing a mad science experiment on himself and would sprout feelers in the morning. "You need to sleep."

Holmes flinched, his face hardening at this accusation of weakness. "I'm busy."

John held up his hands. "It's your funeral. I was going to cook some lentils, but if you don't want any-"

His hip vibrated, and John looked down at his pager. "Fuck's sake, can't I have an hour to myself?"

"Where are you going now?" Holmes asked, trying to keep a high note out of his voice as John looked around for some food he could pocket.

"Work," said John, unfolding his umbrella while stuffing an orange in his jacket, "One of the patients ripped out his IV and made a raid on the pharmacy, chewed up enough Percocet to go blind."

Holmes snorted. "Amateur."

"What?"

"Nothing," he said off-handedly, "Don't stay out too late."

John smiled. "Why?"

"It's not a good neighborhood." he lied, secretly wishing everyone in the clinic would overdose and die so John could keep him company. Down in the street, a police car pulled up with his next witness, and the old familiar pain crept back.

"I'll be back in two hours," said John, heavy boots echoing in the stairway below as he buttoned his coat, taking all the warmth of the apartment with him, and Holmes wondered if he'd last that long before shooting somebody, "Don't let the bastards grind you down."


	2. Ch. 2

"Leave us," said Holmes, waiting until the police officers were out of earshot, "How long have you worked for the deceased?"

The bodyguard fiddled with his lighter. He'd stolen his suit from a much smaller man so the pant legs ran halfway up his calves, and with his front teeth missing he looked an overgrown child.

"We was mates in school." he said.

"You worked for him then?"

"He liked having me around," he said, "I got this big when I was twelve."

Holmes noted the pale web of boxing scars across the man's knuckles. A bowl of John's oranges sat inches away, and he secretly hoped the man would not ask for one.

"And you were at his birthday party last night?" Holmes asked.

"Yeah."

"Anything strange?"

He shrugged. "He brought in this sister act from St. Petersburg, did a dirty a trapeze show in the altogether? Kinda different, but the boss was all excited."

Holmes struggled to keep a straight face. He'd been hoping the club owner had died by his own hand, not erotic asphyxiation with the Scarlet Fever twins. Suicides always made for a better puzzle.

"Why was he excited?" Holmes asked, already dreading the answer.

"Well, uh..." the man hesitated, then leaned in as if the walls had ears, "I known him since forever, always was tight-fisted with the profits, but for special occasions..."

Holmes' face lit up. "...he saved up his money."

"For special occasions." he said, smiling but a little too eager. Holmes noted his yellow thumbnail, and a smile toyed at his lips.

"And what," Holmes asked, "Did he ask for on his birthday?"

The man stared intently, he didn't like begging off strangers. "You got a cigarette?" he asked politely.

"I do," said Holmes, opening his desk drawer without breaking the stare, "It's Turkish, do you mind?"

"Oh that's lovely stuff," he said as Holmes drew out a carton, "Puts hair on your chest that does."

"I know." he said, lighting one in a candle flame. John would scold him about it in the morning, but he needed answers. The man's mouth watered as Holmes drew in, the end glowing red in the gloomy apartment. "What did he ask for on his birthday?"

The bodyguard stopped smiling, jowls hanging on either side of his mouth like an old hound waiting for table scraps. "Can I have a drag, please?"

Holmes held the smoke for a few seconds, savoring the rush as he took the measure of him. He hadn't been in a fight in ages, and John wouldn't be back for hours yet.

He flicked the cigarette onto the carpet. "There you go."

Anger flitted across the man's face, but he took his time bending over to retrieve the little cylinder. The pawn shops would not close for another fifteen minutes, and perhaps Holmes had a few gold fillings worth punching out, after he'd had his fix.

"The Russians got something new on the street," he said, relaxing into the first pull, "They've been selling like mad, the boss was happy to get a hit last night before the supply ran out."

"Selling what?" he asked, a little too quickly.

The man took the measure of Holmes, and guessed right. "You drying out?"

Holmes froze. "I don't-"

"No no," said the man congenially, "I'm sure you're good for it, here, I'll send my friend around, he'll set you up."

Holmes tapped his finger idly on one knee. "What is it?" he asked slowly.

"Synthetic," he said, smoke curling around one side of his face, a wicked glitter in his eyes, "Just like the real thing, but you start to...change you do too much of it. I seen these Russians, arms and legs all crumbly like they'd grown scales, and they say the fatality rate is something like ninety percent."

"Sounds dangerous." said Holmes, smiling to show his teeth.

"Hmm," the man nodded, and made to get up, "Are we done?"

"Yes, thank you," said Holmes, alight with unholy curiosity, "And your friend's name?"

The bodyguard flicked ash onto his desk. "Crocodeel."

"You mean crocodile."

"No," he said, walking out the door, "Crocodeel."

He waited until the outer door snapped shut, then realized he still had the cigarette case in his lap. Putting it back, he reached for one of the oranges. It would make John happy to think Holmes was eating.

He stared out at the rain, half excited and half scared at the prospect of a new narcotic. His waking life was so ordered that he relished the opportunity to kick over the chess board in his head.

"You better wash that first."

The orange was taken from him, and he started. "I thought you wouldn't be back until later."

"My patient's dead," John said dully, "Fucking overdosed, the stupid kid."

"I'm sorry to hear that." he said, sink running in the background as he glanced out the window again. This time of night it was impossible to tell if anyone were down there yet.

"It makes me so mad," said John, letting the water run over his hands, "I don't even know what killed him, it wasn't the pain meds. He was fine, he was in bed eating his dinner and then..."

Something clicked in Holmes' brain. He almost had it, the club owner who'd bought designer drugs and gone to bed afterwards...

"You look terrible," said John, grabbing a hand towel to dry his hands, "Have you taken anything for the fever?"

"I'm fine, really."

"Well at least try a compress," he said, running the towel under cold water, "I've had twelve cases of double pneumonia in the last week and I won't stand to live with one."

Holmes sat frozen as John approached him. They'd always maintained their space, and he didn't want to risk a wrong move.

"This'll bring you down a few degrees," he said, wrapping the damp cloth around the back of Holmes' neck, "Here lean against me."

Despite the bad weather, the top few buttons of John's shirt were undone, so that Holmes' forehead pressed against a small window of warm skin while water dripped down his spine. He'd spent all night shivering and desperately wanted to be warm. John was tired, and it might not take too much convincing to move this conversation into the next room.

Holmes stared at the floor, his aches forgotten. John's hands would be chapped from applying antiseptic all day, his throat nicked from a cheap razor, his mouth dry from too much coffee. As much as he wanted to possess these things for a few hours, he raised a hand to push John away. You didn't use your friends to self-medicate.

"I might be contagious." he explained.

John raised his eyebrows, but didn't push it. "You want to get out, join me and the staff at the pub? Nurse Annie is transferring, thought it'd be nice to buy her a drink..."

"No, you have a good time," said Holmes, "I'm waiting for someone."

"At nearly midnight?" he said, eyeing the clock.

"He's Russian," he said, "He probably hasn't acclimatized to the time difference."

"Whatever, I've had a shitty day and I'm going to get pickled," he said, changing into a nicer coat, "So don't wait up and get some sleep."

John walked out, to the promise of ale, the respect of his colleagues, and blissful boredom, and Holmes hugged himself against a wave of nausea. He hoped Nurse Annie was transferred to a leper colony.

He'd made the right decision, yes? No amount of loneliness was worth jeopardizing the daily refrain of John's conversation.

 _Right._ he thought bitterly, as the clock struck twelve, the chimes singing so low that the coins on his desk shivered. He was about to get up and follow John's advice when a stone plinked off the window glass.

He turned, facing his own sickly reflection. The street was empty, every window darkened save for his own. Reaching inside his coat pocket for a lead slug (John never bothered to search the obvious places), he drew his handgun from the desk, and went down the stairs to greet the third witness.


	3. Ch. 3

Holmes opened the front door to an empty street, the rain so thick he couldn't see the buildings across the street. All over London the bells tolled midnight, and somewhere an ambulance flashed it's party lights, waiting for someone to die.

He stepped inside, stowing his pistol in his breast pocket. John was right, he needed sleep.

Settling himself in his favorite chair, he rolled an orange across the desk with his forefinger, thinking the case over. He wished John were here to bounce ideas off of, but their last little encounter had put Holmes on edge, and he tossed the orange in the bowl, deciding he was not hungry for it after all. It was ripe, and gave too easily to pressure.

 _A club owner buys designer drugs,_ he thought, leaning back, _But he's not a regular user. Healthy men don't die from a single hit, even if it was from an extraordinarily bad batch, so he must have gone home and combined it with something, mixed a lethal cocktail. But he was a straight-laced businessman, he wouldn't have risked purchasing two illicit substances._

He looked around the kitchen, what did ordinary people keep in their homes? _Caffiene?_ No, he went straight to bed, he wasn't planning to party all night. _Alcohol?_ With a narcotic? What's the point?

He opened the refrigerator to consult Mrs. Inglethorpe, her head suspended in aspic like a wedding jello. "What did you keep around the house?"

She stared with polite interest, her eyes sightless as marbles.

"Right, you're no help." he said, slamming the door, and his stomach rolled at the sudden movement. Eyeing the clock, he decided the third witness was a bust, and called it a night.

Feeling his way in the dark, he sat down hard on the bed. The rain had knotted his shoelaces, but when he reached to snap the lamplight the bulb sputtered and died. Too lazy to fetch a candle, he kicked off his shoes and climbed under the cold sheets fully clothed.

He stared at the ceiling, shivering uncontrollably. Normally he would have helped himself to sleep, but detox had heightened his natural paranoia, and for all he knew John was out in the living room holding his breath, ear pressed to the door, waiting for Holmes to abuse himself. The thought warmed him.

As if reading his thoughts, his cell phone chirped, John's name lit large in block letters. He ignored it, he didn't need the man's mollycoddling at this hour, and let it vibrate across the bedside table. Reaching out to silence it his hand brushed against something.

 _A stone?_ He lifted it with thumb and forefinger, shining the cell phone at it, and smiled. Now that he looked carefully he saw the fingerprints on the window pane where a good climber, a circus performer perhaps, might have smuggled in this gift.

The capsule was translucent, half full of dull white powder, but when he set the phone down it glowed faintly green in his hand. _Bioluminescent._ he thought, _Or radioactive, either way..._

He ought to have been more suspicious of the Russian's charity, but he couldn't think of any enemies who would poison him so discretely. He waited for the phone to stop ringing, and the moment John's name vanished he cracked it between his teeth and swallowed it down.

He inhaled thru his nose, and aside from a slightly bitter aftertaste it wasn't too bad, and he lay back to enjoy the ride. He exhaled...

...and the bedroom transformed into liquid architecture, the ceiling stretching away into infinity and disappearing. Plaster breathed in and out with him, the walls bending inwards at such a sharp curve that picture frames popped off their hooks. Carpet patterns swam, outdoor noises slowed to a low warble, and when he lifted his hand he found he could count every pore in the dark.

He sighed. _Another hallucinogen,_ he thought, disappointed, _Well at least I'm not grinding my teeth._

He blinked. _That_ was different. Extrasensory feedback was one thing, but he'd never had anything that affected the direction of his voice.

"Hello?" he said, and clapped his hand over his mouth. There it was, he would _swear_ he could hear his voice being projected from the other side of the room.

Keeping his lips pressed tightly together, he tried a little experiment, and thought of Rupert Murdoch's credit card pin number. Clear as a bell, he heard the numbers being rattled off at him from a shadowy corner behind the door. Wondering if his landlady could hear any of this, he began to think more secrets. Surely no one in the street could hear, the rain was too loud.

"Petroleum prices are regulated by three brothers living under the Ukrainian embassy in Texas, and are gearing up for another war in the Middle East."

"Lady Gaga's perfume is made with blood and semen."

"John once recited Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner to impress a girl when he was ten."

"The Japanese are pouring money into emerging technology, and will soon have their robot army."

"When Vladimir Putin achieves orgasm he screams 'I'm a bad a kitty! A bad, bad kitty!'"

"John has an extensive knowledge of the Napoleonic wars, and somewhere he has a portrait of the Duke of Wellington."

He rocked back and forth in childish glee, fists balled up against his mouth as his thoughts were performed in stereo. Several minutes had passed before he bothered to glance at the window again. If someone had come in and left, there would be two sets of prints. But there was only one.

"Who's there?"

Holmes waited. Another ambulance passed outside, and as red lights climbed the wall a man's face was thrown into relief.

Narrowing his eyes, Holmes ordered, "Come forward."

He did, a derelict of an old man, with ginger hair gone rusty and standing at odd angles like weeds, his clothes twenty years out of fashion and ill-mended. But his eyes gleamed with a mean intelligence, and though the rest of the room gyrated with alien forms, he was very real. The bottom half of his face was concealed by a bandanna, and when he spoke his jaw did not sync with the words.

"You are a sick man, Mister Holmes." he said, echoing like a pronouncement handed down from a mountain. The walls had floated away so that the two men were alone in a well of time and space, and Holmes sank back into his bed, feeling very small and temporary.

"I feel fine."

The old man pointed at the bedside table. "You must take your medicine," he said, "Or you will surely die."

"But I took it, I..." said Holmes, looking down, and the pill was still there. "That's impossible." He reached for it, and his hand passed thru empty air. He tried several times, but either he or the pill were no longer solid.

The old man shook his head. "There is nothing for it now."

"But I took it, I swear!" he shouted, his voice still projecting from across the room.

"I was afraid of this," said the old man, leaning down to fetch something, "I'll need to hold onto it for a time, until you are better."

"Hold onto what?"

He looked down at the man's right arm. Tucked in his jacket where it was hard to see, was a long metal canister with a lid on top. Across the front it had written in capitals:

SHERLOCK HOLMES

"We'll bring it back, don't worry," assured the old man, "It just needs drying out."

And opening his hand, he produced a spongy pink something from thin air, displaying it frankly as a magician might show off the Queen of Spades for a card trick, and then proceeded to stuff it unceremoniously into the tin can.

 _He stole my brain._ he thought, and it bounced across the room, his words warping as bits of gray matter were squished and flattened to make room.

"I'll be in touch." said the old man, touching the brim of his hat.

"Wait!" Holmes shouted, leaping up, "Where are you going?"

"Into the northern wastes," he said, and a chill wind rose up as the room filled with the stench of low tide, and Holmes covered his face with his arm, "Where it will never see the sun. A dark country not fit for the eyes of mortal men."

A sibilant hiss escaped the sides of his mouth, and snapping at last Holmes wrenched the hateful bandanna away. He'd known criminals to mark tattle-tales with a Chelsea grin, a cut from the corners of the mouth that stretched up to the ears in a mocking red smile, but usually the cuts were superficial. Anything deeper might kill a man.

Crocadeel's skin had puckered with age, pulling away from his scars so that his teeth shown like a jack-o-lantern, and when he threw his head back to laugh his whole jaw unhinged like a snake, teeth spiraling all the way down his gullet. Holmes backed into the bed, the bandanna falling from his shaking hand.

And covering his eyes he screamed as laughter echoed in his empty head, on and on until it seemed he had been born and would die in this terrible place. It sounded like the end of the world.

(*)

He awoke with a start, he did not know how much later, but he was alone and the rain had stopped. He pressed his fingers to his temples.

"My brain..." he whispered, and panic set in. Leaping from bed he ran to the closet and pulled out his little pharmacy, emptying it all into a pillowcase. He had a plan now, there was no time to lose. The Russians had everything now, passwords, lethal formulas, state secrets...

...every conversation he'd ever had with John.

"You there!" he shouted, flinging open his window and pointing at a panhandler he knew well, "What day is today?"

The man faltered, unsure himself. "Um..."

"I know what today is!" he said, lifting the pillowcase, "Today is your Independence Day!"

He pointed to other addicts who'd begun to shuffle closer. "Join me brothers, in a new revolution!"

Tossing two different pills to the first man, he said, "Here, they will give you the insight of a shaman and the strength of an ox." Filthy hands outstretched, they jumped and hooted for his favor, snatching horse tranquilizers and antipsychotic meds from the air. More beggars gathered, and in a fit of patriotic fervor, Holmes began flinging fistfuls into the mob like wedding rice.

One cross-eyed bum hugged his nearest neighbor, tears of gratitude in his eyes. "It's going to be a Merry Christmas after all!"

(*)

John stepped out of a cab, drunk and dreamily twiddling the rose Nurse Annie had made for him out of a bar napkin, to find a checkpoint at his front door.

"Excuse me-" he began.

"Moscow will be ours!" shouted one man, a countless number of them lining the sidewalk in glassy-eyed military formation.

"-but I _live_ here!" he continued, forcing his way between two of them. Over the lintel was a hand-painted sign:

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF 221B BAKER STREET

And below that hung a little basket with a card:

TOLL: 50p

"Holmes!" he shouted once he'd gotten up the stairs, "Have you started another war?"

Holmes had his back to him, scribbling furiously at his desk. "Ah, John," said Holmes, he said, holding up a leather folio, "Have a passport. You'll need it to get past customs, occupation makes movement so difficult."

Looking up at John's strained expression, he explained, "I had to declare myself a separate nation if I was going to raise an army. Mycroft would never let me borrow Her Majesty's men."

John was so tired. "Why do you need an army?"

"The Russians, John."

"What are you talking about?"

Holmes folded his hands across his folded knee, speaking slowly for John's benefit. "They _stole._ My _brain._ "

John bit back a laugh. "Clearly."

"You don't have to look so happy about it." he snapped, standing up to look for something in his bedroom.

"You saw them do this?" said John, as he followed him.

"With my own eyes." he said gravely, flipping thru papers on his bed.

"Yes?"

"Stop pestering me!" he said, waving away John in irritation, "England has been compromised! He put it in a tin and is at this very moment extracting secrets most diabolical!"

"A tin, hm?" said John, tapping his toe against a little trash can behind the door, the kind with a foot peddle and a snap lid. He pressed it open to find it stuffed with crumpled drawing paper. "Yes, it sounds like you're busy."

"Please, a little quiet! I've barely had time to draft a constitution..."

John smiled, bending over to flatten out one of the drawings. He turned it right side up, and then his smile faltered.

"...and designing the new currency has been impossible!" Holmes finished.

A charcoal outline filled out with pencil, a nobler, Romanesque profile of John sat inside a Latin emblem. He hardly recognized himself. It was an honest face, open and free of the lines of hardship and war, elevated above a crowd of faces. Every paper held a equally dignified portrait of John, and the trash can was full of paper. He pulled Nurse Annie's rose from his pocket, now perfectly ordinary, and hid it behind a stack of books.

He walked over to Holmes, holding a particularly good one in his hand. Holmes was complaining about trade embargoes with Yorkshire when he spied the drawing, and stopped mid-sentence. He'd completely forgotten about those.

Holmes saw the question in his face, and said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "You know you have an excellent face for coinage?"

He waited for John to speak, to give the art some criticism or faint praise or to fall down on his knees, anything, but John had no words. He was an Englishmen, and was unused to compliments.

So they stood there, frozen in tableau, until a brick crashed the window.

"What's going on out there?" said John, recovering the fastest as he ran to pull back the curtain.

Holmes sat on the bed, thinking and staring at John's nearest hand. "The must be ready for the next dose."

"Next dose of what?" he said, as another brick came thru.

Holmes reached out tentatively. "Step away, it's not safe."

"But look at them-" and then Holmes finally grabbed him, pulling him onto the bed before a rock with a dirty note attached took out the bottom left glass pane. John took out the note which read PAY UP.

"Are you _paying_ these people?!"

"I've been handing out pysch meds," said Holmes, brushing glass off his jacket, "So technically they're earning a psalary. Pity I used up all the thorazine."

"Have you been taking anything?" John said, only half-joking, but at the startled look on Holmes' face he realized he'd hit home, "What are you on?"

Holmes licked his lip. "I...don't know."

John ran a hand thru his hair, which was full of broken glass, and then began to laugh.

Holmes smiled. "What's so funny?"

John looked over, the alcohol still buzzing in his brain. To think, he almost hadn't come home at all. Nurse Annie had been nice, treated him on the first date, watched the same TV shows, and promised to knit him a cable-knit sweater the next time he popped in. Another date and he'd probably get a spare key to her flat. He thought of a lifetime with her, a lifetime of crappy paper roses.

And then, grabbing Holmes by the lapels, he pulled him in close, and kissed him hard enough to draw blood.


	4. Ch. 4

John pulled away, his mouth burning. "Well," he asked, after a few seconds, "Say something."

Holmes' eyes moved the slightest fraction, bright and intent, but he said nothing. Streetlight poured in the windowpanes, casting black bars of shadow across his face.

John did not let go of his coat. He wouldn't be the first to apologize.

"Oy, somebody gonna pay us or we have to come up there?" shouted a voice from the street.

Holmes blinked, snapping back to reality. "I used up my whole stash."

Downstairs, the door sounded with several official sounding knocks.

"Don't go outside," warned Holmes, as John lept up from bed, "They're not in their right minds."

John shot him a wry look before exiting for the den. Holmes touched his fingers to his lips, and curled in on himself as another pang of nausea rolled thru. For once, he cursed his brain candy habit, that his first true moment of joy in a long time would be stolen away by an angry mob and his aching body.

"This should keep them," said John, uncapping a pen to scribble his signature, "Technically its Schedule IV, but at least they'll sleep..." He tore off the prescription and stood at the window to wave.

"They're already here." said Holmes. Sure enough, boots clomped along the stairs, the door-frame splintering under a few well-placed kicks.

"I have this." said John, motioning for Holmes to stay in bed. Looking around the room he spied an oaken bookcase, sagging with textbooks and medical journals. Rolling up his sleeves, he put his shoulder to the far side, and with surprisingly little effort slid it into in place against the door, right as the men surged into the living room.

Holmes bunched up his collar at his throat. He had not supposed John to be so strong, and though fists rained down on the bedroom door, the bookcase did not give. He was sealed in.

"Right," said John, "Hand me that stone, will you?"

Holmes looked down, the army had given him several to choose from.

"Thanks," said John, affixing the prescription note to one with a rubber band, and getting the attention of the men outside, he dropped it out the window to a chorus of hurrahs. John turned to smile, but Holmes lay frozen, very much afraid of what would happen next.

John was drunk. He was entitled to write off anything he did tonight, and Holmes could not bear the thought of John waking up tomorrow and deciding that their kiss, that whatever else they did in this room, did not count. And so when John lay down again, his heart skipping a beat at the unfamiliar weight on the mattress, Holmes crossed his arms protectively. He could not afford to become more invested.

"Is this okay?" John asked, sliding an arm under Holmes' neck.

He sighed, the pressure between his eyes giving way at John's touch. "You must be tired," Holmes suggested, "You can sleep here if you like."

John wasn't listening, he was eyeing Holmes clinically now. "You're on something new," he said, "Why?"

Holmes breathed in slowly, soothed by John's voice and more prone to honesty. "I ran out of my usual supply two days ago."

"You're shivering." he said, pulling him closer.

"Yes," he admitted, and without meaning to he buried his face closer to John, he was so warm, "It's a very...tactile drug."

John held up his hand, showing it to him. "May I?"

Warily, he watched John as he tapped a finger on his sternum, checking for reflexes. Holmes jumped at the touch.

"Keep doing that." Holmes said, his guts unknotting. Even that brief contact broke up the pain, warmth blooming in his chest like ink in troubled water.

John let his finger rest on Holmes, idly drawing a line from one shirt button to the next. "Is this okay?" he asked, pressing his palm flat with fingers spread. Heat rolled up Holmes' spine as he arched off the bed, gritting his teeth at the feedback.

"We should probably stop." Holmes suggested. If someone were to walk in now, should their landlady have the fortitude to muscle past his private army and ancient furniture to burst in with a tea tray, both men could conceivably claim nothing had happened, and he wanted to keep it that way.

But John bent closer, hands slipping over his folded arms to pry them apart.

"Don't." said Holmes, and the both sat up.

"This can't be easy," said John, his voice easy, "Let me get you thru the night."

Clouds passed over the moon, and John's face was cast in shadow as he undid the top shirt button. Holmes huddled inside of his clothes, trying to remain still. He was stone. He was a statue. Even when John pressed his mouth to his neck.

His lips were soft, almost chaste against his skin, and when Holmes closed his eyes little fractal hearts pinwheeled behind his eyelids. When he did not tell him to stop, John pressed on, threading his fingers thru his dark hair.

Holmes looked at the ceiling thru half-lidded eyes, his breathing ragged as he continued to clutch at himself, refusing to open his arms though he was very hard now. He angled his knees away so that John might not see, but when he grabbed his hip to draw him closer, John's arm pressed on top of his cock, and the momentary contact made him cry out in surprise.

"Did I hurt you?"

Holmes shook his head.

"You sure?" Even thru the fabric he could tell the man was painfully swollen.

"It's...been a while is all."

John's eyes narrowed. "How long?"

 _Since you moved in._ "A while."

"Why?" he asked, frankly curious at Holmes' sudden Puritanism, "You've got the flat to yourself most of the time, you can get yourself off..."

"Yes but it's a bit selfish, isn't it?" he snapped, "You don't buy yourself a dozen roses or write yourself a letter," he said, very small now, "Some things have to be given."

He turned his head, searching John's face for some reaction to this confession. But John only smiled.

"Then this should be easy."

His date with Nurse Annie had been disappointing. Oh she was pretty and bright and could sing in key, but she couldn't be bothered when it came to sex, and lay beneath him like a corpse. And here was Holmes, his body lit up like a circuit board, aching to be molested.

He pressed his mouth to his, forcing it open this time, and Holmes shuddered at the wet heat of his mouth over his face to his neck, until he was panting in John's embrace.

"Please," he begged, pulling John full-length on top of him, "It's so cold..."

He wound his arms around John's waist, crushing their bones together, and John paused to leave a love bite below his ear, he lifted them both off the bed with his hips, shrieking an octave higher then normal.

(*)

Outside, the Glorious Army of the People's Republic of 221B Baker Street waited, leaning against lamp posts and parked cars as pre-dawn commuters shuffled past.

"Don't bother reading _Breaking Dawn_ , it's absolutely ridiculous," said a girl on her cell phone, "When does a man bite a pillow?"

Holmes's cries echoed down the street thru the broken window, and one of the men turned around to smile. "When he's getting fucked up the arse."

(*)

John sat up, his knees bracketing Holmes' hips, and slowly began pushing the other man's shirt up his chest. Holmes shivered.

"Don't worry," said John, undoing his belt buckle for him, "Relax."

Holmes squirmed, suddenly afraid he might not be able to finish with another person in the room. John's left hand lay warm on his shoulder, a long stretch of pale flesh laid bare as his slacks were opened. John rolled back his sleeve, his forearm muscled like bridge cables from years of asserting his will on unruly patients.

"You don't have to do this," Holmes assured him, "Lest anyone think I'm taking advantage."

But John slid his hand inside the cotton briefs, Holmes' mouth dropping open as he watched his own cock, thick and red, encircled by John's fist.

"Who's taking advantage?"

Holmes' hands flew up to grab the headboard, head thrown back into the pillow as he was worked. The drugs flicked a switch in his brain, and time dilated as John's hand dragged tortuously slow.

"Breathe." said John, for Holmes had sucked in air until his lungs could take no more, and forgotten to exhale.

"Don't stop, please..."

John's grip on his shoulder was firm but respectful, keeping him in place as he fought against him, his body now dripping with sweat and feverish with unholy need. A breeze caught at the curtains, sending papers thru the air, and when the wind blew harder several precariously balanced books crashed to the floor, the inkwell rolling along the edge of the desk and threatening to upend itself.

"Fuck, John..." The pressure coiled at the base of his spine, to think that this man kneeling over him, strong and in the prime of his life, should have such power over him, likely keep him in this room all night until he was thoroughly fucked out...

"Stay...still..."

"Please it hurts..."

His voice pitched higher and higher, the crystal in the neighbor's cupboards shivering as he let out a prolonged note of despair. And as John gave a last vicious pull, the dogs covered their ears and in all the surrounding houses, glassware shattered.


	5. Ch. 5

Holmes lay in peaceful suspension, as a swimmer will exhale and sink to the bottom of a pool to block out the world. He lifted six inches as John stepped off the bed, and the cold rushed back in.

"You'll go blind working like that." said John, surveying the cramped work desk, all the papers turned yellow under the weak lamplight.

As John unscrewed the lightbulb, Holmes looked down. Two thick ropes of pearl lined his bare chest, and he curled in on himself. As if his body had betrayed him. Not wanting to dirty his sheets he simply pulled his shirt down, pressing it flat with his palm until he felt the warm, wet stain.

"I'm heading to the store in a bit," said John, his back to Holmes as he stretched for the ceiling light, "I can pick up some more bulbs on the way."

John had meant nothing by this. His household errands were one of the few normal topics of conversation they shared, and after this little excursion he wanted to be on solid ground. But Holmes was very quiet, the lines in his face darkening. He felt like a chore crossed off of John's list, a dirty spot to be rubbed out. His shirt stuck to him as the nausea returned, guts curdling as old habits kicked in.

"It was the orange."

"What?" asked John, removing the dead bulb from the ceiling chain and stuffing it in his pocket.

"You didn't eat it. There's no peel under your nails."

"So?"

It wasn't what he'd meant to say. But he would rather sabotage his chance at happiness then be an object John's disinterest, and for the first time he wished for an advocate to translate his cruel words.

"The orange," he repeated, "It's how you killed your patient."

Holmes' books lay everywhere, and as his resentment fermented the great minds of Britain came to his aid, the ink running from the pages and melting into spidery streams, down the case, over the floor, up the plaster. All the cold, calculating theory that would propel the People's Republic of 221-B Baker Street toward a faceless conspiracy coagulated into a black pool above the headboard to say what he could not.

"Your patient didn't rob the pharmacy for painkillers," he continued, "He needed a syringe. Probably he laid it by his bed, clinic staff wouldn't notice it. I'm guessing he wasn't just a heavy drinker, had a history of harder stuff?"

He couldn't stop himself, any more then you can stop tonguing a cut on the roof of your mouth, while behind him the ink took shape. Letters knit together in an alien geometry, black beads rising up by the most convenient path, often taking a footnote or bits of book binding with them.

John said nothing, pulling a fresh bulb from a shelf. Holmes went on, now kneeling on the bed with his fingertips barely touching the coverlet.

"If it was just cocaine, he would need an acid to break up the rock before injecting it," he said, talking faster, "The rock would be easy to miss in a search, and once you turned to leave he probably pocketed the orange in your jacket and injected the needle straight into it."

"How does that kill him?" asked John, swiping dust from the bulb with his thumb. His voice was impossible to read.

"You washed an orange for me earlier," he said, "But not your own. There's a fungus that grows on the peel, harmless if eaten, but if injected directly into the bloodstream..."

"...it causes brain damage."

"And a seemingly fit young man dies of a stroke," he said, getting up to stand, "Because you were too distracted by Nurse Annie's invitation. Which, judging by the fact that your socks haven't come off all night, suggests she wasn't impressed enough to ask you to stay the night."

He stared at the lines of John's back unhappily, willing him to turn around and see the writing on the wall.

"So out of sexual frustration, you came home and found me," he said, stretching out the last three words, "Low. Hanging. Fruit."

He let that sink in as John reached to screw in the light.

"Can't you hear me?"

"What are you trying to say?" The bulb clicked into place, flooding the room, and John stepped forward to withdraw the old one from his pocket and set it on the bookcase. The hot light brushed Holmes' cheek, sometimes he forgot how short John was.

Holmes opened his mouth another inch, he simply couldn't stop himself. "You're a murderer."

John turned around, eyes skating across the room. To him it appeared no different, but to Holmes' fevered brain he could feel the outline of their bodies still stamped into the bed, the floorboards vibrating under his feet, and ten foot letters spread wide behind him that read:

DO IT AGAIN

(*)

Down in the street, Frenchie the street musician shook his comrade awake. "Buster, get up!"

"Oy, lemme sleep." said the old bum, rolling over in his newspapers behind the trash bin.

"Up with you, there's profits to be made!" he said, transferring an accordion strap to the other shoulder.

"What are you on about?"

Frenchie pulled him to his feet, snatching up his guitar case and half running back to Baker Street as he explained. The closer they got, the thicker the crowd became, homeless and drunkards and other curious night creatures watching the show from the lit third story window.

"What is this?" asked Buster.

"Remember we used to play the silent picture show?" said Frenchie, tuning his accordion and signaling for a street urchin to start passing around the hat.

"But this ain't a movie!"

"It's about to be," said Frenchie, favoring the audience with a gummy smile, "Now, how's about we start with a little pick-me-up. A ONE-two-three TWO-two-three..."

(*)

John landed the first punch, sending him on all fours. The lightbulb struck the back of his head as he fell, so that it swung the length of the room. Holmes put a hand to his cheek and looked down, but his eyes would not focus.

"Don't..." he said, lost for words as he stared at John's shoes. Papers slipped and shifted, and somewhere far away was the clink of a steel buckle. John's shadow stretched and shrunk against the wall in the drunken light, and Holmes tipped his head back as he approached.

"Here," he said, folding the belt double and slipping it between his teeth, "Bite down."


	6. Ch. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: The two street musicians are playing "La Valse Des Vieux Os" from the 'Amelie' film soundtrack

Holmes bit down. The leather was soft, and he imagined John at work when this was all over, pressing his thumb on a stranger's pulse with a matching set of teeth marks on his belt.

John dropped to one knee, taking his time. He half regarded Holmes with that curious stare a man gives when he's listening to a third party on the phone but doesn't want you to leave the room yet. Pulled in two directions.

"Nnn..." Holmes said through clenched teeth, his fingers curling in anticipation as a hand was laid on his ankle. He tried to shuffle away, but John held fast.

"Don't think about it," said John softly, his nails marking the white skin, "Not even for a moment."

Holmes was yanked forward, heels scuffing the floor as John dug into the flesh above his knees. After three days on no sleep, a long line of broken people and blood on his hands and so much human noise he could hardly breathe, John was all out of gentleness.

"That's as far as you get." he said, balling up the top of Holmes' slacks in his fist. Holmes' head knocked against the side table, hair falling over one eye, and when he grabbed hold of the chair to stand, John took it one-handed and flung it across the room. The violence jarred him, and when John's weight fell on him his legs parted unconsciously.

He straightened out slowly, while behind him the ink stretched itself in invitation, touching every flaw in the plaster with frank familiarity.

Sex had always repulsed Holmes, the idea of sharing a moist body as appealing as being swaddled in baked beans, but he would not be able to disassociate himself from whatever John was about to do. Hands are one thing, all men have them, and one is easily substituted for another. Anything else was deliberate, and as much as Holmes itched to grab the back of the man's head and force his mouth elsewhere, he couldn't bear the thought of John lowering himself for his benefit.

John knew this, he had to make Holmes hungry for it. Reaching back, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and laid it on the bed, for later.

"You were wrong about the socks."

John leaned in, closing the space between them faster then Holmes could suck in a breath. "Nurse Annie didn't need me to undress," he said, his ankles locked around bony little legs so he could not twist away, "She'd had her legs around my neck four times and a smile for every one."

Holmes' eyes flicked from the bed down to John's mouth, raw from cleaning Girl off on his sleeve, but couldn't figure out why his wallet was so thick. What on earth did other men keep in their wallets?

"You can call me anything you want, even a criminal..."

Holmes cataloged everything John usually carried, cash, ID, bus tickets, but tonight the leather bulged with something more anonymous, a plastic square. A little room with no exit.

"And maybe you've got the rest of the city averting their eyes when you enter the room..." he said, shaping the words against the side of his face.

"But in here, right now..."

He pried apart the fabric, Holmes shaking as his cock was freed again, still sticky from last time. He wasn't in the market for the contents of John's wallet, but it was too late to change his mind.

"...you don't know anything."

And slapping the heel of his hand against Holmes' knee, he lowered his head.

Holmes bared his teeth, mouth contorted by the belt, but would not look away. He was still numb from the drugs, maybe he wouldn't feel it, maybe John would get tired and quit, maybe...

And then he was swallowed up, and he was gone.

The ink crawled toward the ceiling with pencil-thin fingers, drawn to the light. Holmes watched it, memorized as it coiled down the electrical cord, closing over exposed copper in a thick, warm sleeve, and slowly the room began to darken. Elsewhere in the flat, circuits overloaded, appliances popping in unison until the entire building went lights out, all except for the one over him, humming so loud it could be heard in outer space.

John pressed a hand to Holmes' shirt, sticking and unsticking as his chest fluttered. The pressure was too much, a single drop sizzling and melting possessively around the glass curve. Another minute and the bulb would burst, black ichor on the furniture, the books, their clothes, they wouldn't be able to walk the street, they wouldn't be able to show their faces. Everyone would know.

He shut his eyes, trying to disengage, legs tensing until his toes pointed into the floor, but the black light hung over them like the sword of Damocles, daring him to submit. Something broke in his struggle, and a ribbon of blood poured over his lip.

John looked up, the belt put aside but not forgotten. "Are you alright?"

Holmes snatched a handful of blonde hair and dragged his mouth across the front of his body, sealing their lips together in a crude kiss until their teeth clicked with the bitter taste of his own cock.

"You're hurt."

A smile lifted the corner of Holmes' mouth, looking so utterly deranged that it lifted the hairs on the back of John's neck. "Am I stopping you?"

Without disconnecting, they lurched to their feet toward the bed, the light making Holmes dizzy as it swung past. He fumbled with the buttons on John's shirt half-blind, if he could just reach out and hold it in place...

Outside, some enterprising soul was playing a shanty, echoing in the otherwise hushed street, and with a start the lightbulb froze and the whole room lurched to one side like a ship at sea. He lifted one heel, and it came down on empty air, their bodies reeling with a sudden stop on the desk. Ink flew around the corners of the room, suddenly alert and eager to see what came next.

John caught his breath, their foreheads touching. "More?"

Holmes nodded, and John flipped him over. The wooden edge bit into his thighs, and in the window's reflection they were no more then two silhouettes. "You're gonna feel my hand."

Bent over each other at right angles, his skin prickled in the cold as John kicked his feet apart and spat into his hand.

"Fuck..." he hisses at his touch, tongue curling against this new invasion.

"Am I going too fast?"

"No keep going," he said, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his lower lip, "Just..."

John squeezed his shoulder. The first finger didn't hurt, and Holmes set his elbows on the desk, a drop of blood running out his nose to plink on an open book. He considered it philosophically, so red it looked black, and wondered why everyone warned him about the pain.

And then the second one had him on the balls of his feet, and all the air rushed out of him.

"Try and hold still," he said, hooking an arm across Holmes' chest to keep him close, "You need time to adjust."

John let his free hand fall down on top of his, and slowly the drop opened out, obscuring the text and spreading words to either side, pushed out of the margins until they spilled over their interlocked fingers. He reached to balance himself against the window...

(*)

Frenchie and Buster waited, the guitar case gleaming with pocket change.

"Are they dead?" Buster whispered. He'd been vamping the same figure over and over, barely background noise, as the two shadows scrabbled from one end of the flat to the other. The crowd was silent, even the other bums, mangy old drunks who farted in church and scribbled on the prayerbooks, coughed politely into their sleeves.

"I can hear them moving."

"The tall one really hates him."

"Nah, he's just bring an asshole preemptively, shows you're interested."

A pale hand pressed to the windowpane, outline steaming up the glass as Holmes screamed like a little girl.

"See," said Frenchie, two spots flaring in Buster's cheeks, "Works every time."


	7. Ch. 7

John flung him roughly on his back, maps and legal documents flying from the desk. Holmes panted, sitting up on his elbows as John slowly placed his hand on his knee.

"Why'd you stop?"

John's face twisted in consideration, squinting at the distant sunrise. Everywhere bedside alarms were ringing, and outside pedestrians with hot coffee and responsible jobs lined up for the bus. Holmes read his face, but would not let the scourge of daylight steal this opportunity.

"Come here."

John bent down, their mouths sealed as Holmes' hand drifted inside his shirt, cold fingertips slipping around his waist to draw him close. John broke off and smiled.

"Want me to take it off?"

Holmes stared at the little button resting against his Adam's apple. He didn't need to see John naked. Holmes could glance at any stranger and know by their freckles, the color of their teeth, the sound of their voice, what they looked like under their clothes. It required no imagination.

"That can wait." he said, while behind him the ink lay in the shadows, waiting to take form.

Stretched on top of him, John was a comforting heat, and Holmes closed his eyes to let his cheek sink into the side of John's face. He was already hard again, and when John hooked his thumbs inside his waistband, he dug his nails into John's arm, skin prickling in the cold air as his slacks were pushed down and left to dangle off one ankle.

He slipped his hand inside John's slacks, a little shock going thru him when his fingers brushed his cock and felt it jump. "Get your wallet." Holmes hissed.

John wasn't looking, their mouths glued together as he scrabbled on the desk and flicked his wallet open, dropping credit cards and stamps in a blind search for a condom. Once his cock was free Holmes planted a foot on the edge of the desk, lifting his hips until they were grinding into each other with unholy need.

Meanwhile, down in the street, Frenchie patted his enormous coat and pulled out various wooden bits.

"The hell you got there?" asked Buster.

"Wha', you never seen a clarinet?" he said, twisting the cylinders together.

"Never cared for it," he said, sniffing distastefully as Frenchie gave the underside of the mouthpiece a hearty slurp, "Don't seem sanitary."

"You gotta keep it wet mate," he said, giving it an experimental hum before tonguing the reed again, "Else the song don't come out right. Now, let's try for something in F, and swing the beat if you could..."

John spat into his hand. "Try not to move."

Holmes was not educated in pain, save for that one dislocated shoulder in the boxing ring, and smirked at John's concern. "Hurry up already."

John snaked a hand under Holmes' head, hooking his other arm under Holmes' knee and taking special care to not jostle the desk any further. He dithered, wondering if he should change the angle, or talk some more as he would with a patient, not registering his partner's impatience. And so he was not prepared when Holmes grabbed his hips with both hands and impaled himself.

His mouth fell open. There was one horrible moment when both men forgot to breath, and later Holmes would joke, _That's death, isn't it? You breathe out, and forget to breathe in again._ Holmes responded first, seizing up so hard it would have caved in a lesser man, and John reeled in cockbound agony.

"Fuck..." Holmes whispered, pushing John away slightly only to pull him reluctantly back again, and even that simple move made John ball up his fist and punch the desk. Holmes tried it a second time and bit down at the sting, trying to disconnect.

"Give it a few minutes."

The desk rattled against wall as they picked up speed, scuffing the plaster, and the world sharpened around Holmes as he tried to push it away. But the world became impossible to ignore, cars and and music and poppy ringtones all conspiring with the pain to kill his erection, and John was lost on top of him, buried too deep his task to notice Holmes' frustration.

Soon John went on auto-pilot, burying his face in Holmes' neck. With the latex numbing his cock, he could come whenever he liked, and was only waiting for Holmes' signal to finish. But Holmes' did not understand the mechanics of love, and assumed it was something to be endured rather then enjoyed.

He turned his head, wondering how long John could keep this up, when the ink rose up from the shadows. Black bubbles, big and small, floated thru the room, popping into existence with each new noise. Here a police whistle, here a bird chirp, one of an ambulance swelling and stretching in the air only to disappear as the siren rounded the corner. The permanent ones settled onto the furniture, watching John's back with insect eyes, and Holmes' glared.

"Get...out." he hissed, reaching inside his jacket for the gun.

"What are you doing?" John asked, muffled in Holmes' hair, and only had time to knock Holmes' hand to the side as the bullet went wide and struck a bust of Rousseau.

"They won't shut up!"

"What are you talking about?"

"They're here," Holmes hissed, "They whisper obscene secrets, as if I couldn't see them!"

Holmes lay there, flushed with the hot gun barrel pressed against his cheek, looking utterly deranged. It was a familiar look in John's fantasies, and he stopped, brought dangerously close by the idea that he could fuck the Crazy away. Fighting the instinct to lift him up and plow him into the mattress, he instead heaved forward with a forearm across Holmes' chest, weighing him down.

"What's the problem?"

Holmes clutched his hair in both hands, and finding a stone on the desk he hurled it the length of the room, but succeeded in only breaking a mirror. "Let me up!" he cried.

John searched his face, waiting for Holmes to lie and say he was fine. He had a desperate look he knew well. "Here, let me help you finish."

Holmes was about to refuse, he'd come against his will once already and did not treasure the humiliation a second time, but the moment John kissed him he relaxed, and did not fight when he felt a hand take his cock.

Something clicked in his head, and conferring to one another on a silent frequency the ink bubbles began to congregate around the two men. Bubbles connected and merged, bulging in different directions as their noises struggled for aural synchronicity. Soon they surpassed the physics of the bedroom, expanding until the iridescent surface touched the desk and swallowed them up.

Time slowed. They were inside a great black globe of the city, London lights twinkling along the concave surface, the discord of car horns and telephones and street music resolving into a natural harmony, with John's labored breathing at the heart of it all.

He locked his legs around John's waist, heels digging into the small of his back, his narrow hips rising to meet John only to slam into the desk again and rattle their bones. John's teeth sank into the soft flesh of his lower lip, sweat rolling down the inside of his shirt.

But it wasn't enough, and pulling back Holmes landed a fist on John's jaw, balling up his shirt in one hand until their faces were inches away. "No wonder the nurses won't fuck you."

John reached up to touch his face. "You hit me," he said thru his teeth, "You crazy..."

John rocked back on his heels, hooking upwards to hit a honey spot Holmes' didn't even know he had, punching it over and over again with the head of his cock until Holmes' eyes rolled in their sockets, and Holmes arched beneath him, face contorted as if he would die.

"There you are," Holmes said, exhaling, "Close now..."

The city pulsed above him, traffic speeding up impossibly until they burned red rivers thru the streets, John's face lit with a terrible brilliance, and when he finally came he struck Trafalgar Square in a series of hot, light licks.

(*)

"What about you?"

"There's time for that later," said John, tossing the empty condom into the waste basket, "Let's get some sleep."

Disappointment settled into Holmes' gut, but he levered himself off the desk and slid between the sheets with John. "You work tonight?"

"I might," said John, a smile playing at the corner of his lips, "Depending on how you're feeling."

Holmes said nothing, the air turning pink in the rising sun. Nodding non-noncommittally, he laid his head on the pillow and listened to John breathe.

The London Bubble haunted him. He was no closer to discovering who had killed the club owner, and anyone with the connections to flood the streets with lethal party drugs will have noticed Holmes' little army by now, putting them both at risk.

Getting out of bed, he located his pants and shoes, and re-packed his pistol while looking over at John. His features were peaceful in sleep, balled up like a cat, and in a moment of weakness Holmes stooped to curl his blonde hair behind his ear. He could not bear London, even an idea of London, without John in it.

"I'll be back soon." he whispered as the door closed behind him. There was nothing he could do to merit John's love. But he didn't know this, and left the warm safety of John's company to venture out into the city.

"If I wanted to buy some Crocadeel," he asked one of his men, "From whom would I buy it?"

The beggar cleared his throat, eyes flicking from side to side for eavesdroppers. "You mean the Russians?"

"I know where they are!" another man hissed, grabbing Holmes' shoulder, "Down by the river, big place! Oooo he's a very wicked gentleman that lives there!"

"Pfft," said his friends, "That Romeo from Moscow? He won't last long."

"The main dealer own property on the Thames?" Holmes asked.

The man shook his head, snapping his fingers as if the name had been on the tip of his tongue, and Holmes showed him ten pounds as a memory aid.

"Zhenka," said the man, snatching the money away, "They call him Zhenka. Red brick monster on the east side of Lambeth Bridge, can't miss it."

Holmes thanked him and hailed a cab. It was not long before he found the place and was ushered inside by two wedge-faced men in black suits, their gloved hands pointing him to the main office before a preliminary patdown. Holmes scanned their clothes, their intent expressions, and decided against questioning them.

"Alright," said the guard as he pocketed Holmes' gun, "In you go."

"Mister Zhenka will see me then?"

The guard snorted. "That's just a street name."

"Let him through," said a voice from the office, "I expected him hours ago."

Holmes looked up. A neat dark man in a handmade suit stood in the door, soft curls framing a pale oval face too feline to be entirely European. A handkerchief had been artfully arranged in his breast pocket, and he wore a mourning ring that he constantly polished with his thumb. Holmes nodded, but Zhenka's eyes remained cool and remote.

"You have the advantage of me," said Holmes, "I didn't realize we had an appointment."

Zhenka replied with a dry smile, and turned back into the office with the door left open.

"Thank you for seeing me." said Holmes, taking in the sumptuous surroundings as his host walked to the bar to make a breakfast cocktail. A marble fireplace took up an entire wall, while the guards stood on either side of a Renoir and stared at the ceiling.

"Aren't you hot?" asked Holmes. Despite the over-heated room the man had wrapped a cashmere scarf round his throat.

"Yes," he said, his accent mostly Russian with a hint of French, "You take ice or no?"

"I'm fine at the moment," said Holmes, "If you're hot then why don't you take off your jacket?"

"I like to overdress," he said, pressing a drink into Holmes' hand and holding it there a moment so their hands touched, "It's more fun when I take all my clothes off."

Holmes swallowed. The man's eyes were half-lidded, giving him a sort of cold beauty in the leaping firelight, and he lost his train of thought. "I have a few questions Mister-"

"Oh please, call me Evgeny," he said, spreading his arms to slouch irreverently against the fireplace, "Evgeny Onegin."


	8. Ch. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The internet is woefully, WOEFULLY low on Eugene Onegin fic.

"How may I be of service Mister Holmes?" said Onegin.

"You've already been a great help by letting me inside," said Holmes, glancing about his palatial surroundings, "You're independently wealthy, enough to move your people into place but not enough to choke off the narcotic supply to London in order to introduce your own designer drug. For that, you would need help from a higher power."

Onegin snorted, inclining his head when a knock came at the door. "Enter."

A fortyish blonde walked in, dressed all in gray with silk gloves clutched in one hand. She held up a pearl-handled handgun for the guard to take. "Sorry I'm late," she said, heels clicking, "It's a long walk from the train."

"It's fine, this won't take but a moment," said Onegin, pushing himself off the mantle to refill his drink. He regarded Holmes with wry amusement, "Pray, continue."

"You're choosing your customers carefully," said Holmes, slightly disconcerted now, "Else we would have seen a lot more overdoses in the news."

"Really?" said Onegin, raising his eyebrows politely, "And who has died?"

"The strip club owner."

Onegin swirled the ice in his glass. "Clearly I'm a dangerous man," he said, looking over the rim of his glass, "You're basing all of this on one death?"

"No," said Holmes, smiling and pointing at the woman behind him, "I'm basing it on her shoes."

The blonde stiffened, her mouth a hard line. "What're you goin' on about?" she asked through her teeth.

"That Mister Onegin here," he said exultantly, "Is assassinating key business owners in the greater London area in order to install his own personal network of spies, and you can drop the accent," he said, turning to face her, "You're muddling your Rs."

Her mouth fell open, not sure where to begin. "You...! What...!" she stammered, gesturing helplessly, "What's wrong with my shoes?!"

"Nothing," he said, sketching a line in the air at her ensemble, "Except that it's ten below outside, and you're wearing a heavy coat, gloves, hat, scarf, with open-toed heels? Only sex workers bother to show off their pedicure off the clock."

"What did you just call me?!"

"Or 'gentleman's special interest', whatever you write on your tax form," he said, slowly circling her as he went down the checklist, "Eyebrows plucked and drawn back on, eyelids slightly sticky from gluing on false eyelashes in the last, oooh, four hours, breasts done and gone to a tanning bed regularly for the last twenty years. Spent a lot of money on hair and make-up, you're used to being on display, but your face is too asymmetrical to be an actress or model." 

He did an abrupt about-face, sipping his scotch and nodding to Onegin in approval. "He's wise to hire you. You would know the club business better then anyone, and not quite pretty enough to attract attention from the police."

"Mister Onegin, who's this idiot-"

"And you talk loud," Holmes continued over her, "Prematurely deaf from working around loud music. Your eyes are slightly yellow, the beginnings of hepatitis, but you haven't noticed yet because you work in the dark, probably because your last boss, let me guess, Ukrainian? Failed to mention it because he found your drug habit distasteful."

And gripping her arm, he pushed her coat sleeve up to the elbow, expecting to reveal a map of track marks. But the witty rejoinder died on his lips. His fingers slid across her bare forearm, lean muscle jumping beneath reptilian scales as pale and cold as a tile floor.

"So the rumors are true..." he said quietly.

"Get away from me!" she said, snatching her arm away and yanking the sleeve down, "I've never been outside the UK in my life."

"Please," he said, as if he hadn't seen anything, "No one pronounces their rhotic consonants like that unless they studied British English in Hong Kong, so you've obviously flown in from Moscow in the past few weeks."

"Moscow!" she said, snorting. She took a hard step toward him, her mouth contorted. "I come from Duncaster these last five years, thank you."

"Duncaster?" he said, clinking the ice in his drink. He set it on the little bar, pouring seltzer water with his back to the fire.

"Do you know how the Nazis outted female spies?"said Holmes, pitching his voice low.

She held her breath, suddenly intent as the glass filled to the top. He set the pitcher back gently, folding his free hand behind his back.

"They got them pregnant," he said, his right hand twisting around something wedged in the fire, "A Bavarian baker's water broke and suddenly she began swearing in Russian."

"That right?" she asked, cautious but steadily drawn in by his steely gaze.

"That's right." he whispered.

And with a cold smile, he touched the hot poker to her hair.

"свинья!" she shrieked, a foul smell filling the room as she batted at her singed hair. Holmes counted to five, and when she did not stop screaming he threw his drink in her face.

"Sadly," he said, neatly hanging the poker beside the fireplace, "I don't have nine months to waste on an answer."

She clutched her ear, eyes darting fearfully between the two men. Then remembering herself, she lowered her hand into a crumpled fist. "Мои волосы!" she hissed at Onegin, eyes narrowed to slits, and he raised his palms in acquiescence.

Pulling open the top drawer, Onegin removed a pad of official stationary from the desk and sat down to write, everyone in the room very quiet except for the pen scratching from side to side. "Here," he said, folding the paper twice, "Have them call my bank if there's any problem."

Snatching it from his fingers, she turned on her heel, glaring at Holmes over her shoulder until her face swiveled with the rest of her. She held her hand up to the guard, and without looking at her he drew the pearl-handled gun from his jacket, covering her dainty hand with his brown one, and she slid it roughly into her handbag before the door closed on her.

Onegin gestured to the chair opposite his for Holmes to take.

"I'm right," said Holmes, seating himself on the edge, his voice slightly higher then usual, "Aren't I?"

A smile played at Onegin's mouth, but Holmes restrained himself from further questioning.

"That's a very upscale hair salon you just sent her to." Holmes remarked as he pulled the chair up to the desk, joining his hands neatly on top.

Onegin rested his head against one hand. The fire cast one side of his face into shadow, save for the glitter of his mourning ring, and he seemed content to listen to Holmes all day. "You read Russian as well?"

"No, but your haircut is very expensive. And very recent," he pointed out, "You haven't been in London long, you wouldn't be able to recommend any other place that had your credit information on file."

Onegin opened his hand. "My employees need to look their best. I'm hosting an important event this evening," he said, narrowing his eyes, "You ought to come."

"Sorry, I didn't sleep well last night," said Holmes nastily, the after-effects of the drug still fuzzing the edges of his perception, "I fear I will make for poor conversation."

"So bring a friend," said Onegin airily, "I'm eager to see this Doctor of yours. How are the charcoals drawings coming along? Must be difficult to hide that sort of thing in such a small apartment."

Holmes blinked, but ran the numbers and decided the man was bluffing. "You saw a slight stain on my shirt cuff and deduced...deduced..."

Onegin covered his smile, and Holmes tried again.

"The man you sent into my room last night went through my possessions while I slept..."

"What are we, the Cold War again?" said Onegin sardonically, "Rifling thru dumpsters, tapping phone lines?"

"You guessed," said Holmes firmly, "I'm classically educated, it wouldn't be a far leap to guess that I draw in my spare time."

"Hmm..." said Onegin, examining his nails.

Holmes grit his teeth. "You're not going to tell me how you know."

"I will," said Onegin, looking up, "Come to the party tonight."

"What's in it for me?"

Onegin leaned back in his chair. "Do you know why the club owner died from the drug and you didn't?"

Holmes scoffed. "That's nothing," he said, "Narcotics choke the cerebral bloodflow, little half-second intervals of oxygen deprivation that, after years of habit, has toughened my brain against strokes."

"I know. You've been charting it for the last five years," said Onegin with a curious half-smile, "In the back of your head."

Holmes pursed his lips. "How can you...possibly know that?"

"Because we have something in common," said Onegin, the chair swiveling gently beneath him, "We both have very...singular brains."

"I don't understand."

"You will." said Onegin, standing up and walking around the desk. He knelt and took Holmes's hand between his, looking up thru long lashes. "Come now, let's be co-conspirators. I have much to share, and you've no idea what a...warm interest I have in you."

His fingers were warm and soft, a gentleman's hands. Holmes stared at them, and did not pull away. "You know nothing about me."

"I didn't, until last night. And even now you've changed. Not innocent, but..." he said, his eyes glittering wickedly, "Not well used."

Holmes blushed. Onegin had all the signs of a fellow addict, and no doubt he had had ample partners with which to experiment in the fine art of drug-induced fuckery. For a moment his eyes rested on Onegin's face, wondering if he had any drugs stashed in the room, and what his mouth would taste like after the pills had dissolved...

But then he noted the mourning ring. It was at least ten years old. "You must have been very young when you lost your friend."

"...yes." said Onegin after a while.

"What happened?"

"You know the kind of bullet wound they found a cure for?" said Onegin, a bitter edge to his words, "He didn't have that."

Holmes thought of John, the little heart-shaped scar on his shoulder from the war, and removed his hand from Onegin's grasp. "What's to stop me from reporting you to the authorities?"

"What, your brother Mycroft?" said Onegin, standing and waving his hand as if to clear the air, "He knows I'm here. I am on official business."

"Right," said Holmes in a mocking tone, "The KGB sent a Saint-Petersburg dandy to infiltrate the London business community?"

"Darling, I could tell you what song the Prince Regent had stuck in his head last night and how long it took him to remember the chorus," said Onegin, the guards approaching at the marked change in his voice, letting Holmes know that the interview was at an end, "I _am_ the KGB."

(*)

"You're going to this party Sherlock."

"But Mycroft!"

Mycroft raised a warning finger, and Holmes sank back into the office chair. Mycroft had been redecorating, and the wall behind his head was a grid of framed awards for services rendered to Her Majesty, none of them made out to Mycroft's real name. "Evgeny Onegin," Mycroft continued, "Is an important guest, and you will treat him with all due consideration."

"He's a spy."

"He's also an ambassador," Mycroft countered, "And shall be granted diplomatic immunity during his visit."

"Didn't you hear the word 'spy'? What is so important that you can sweep that aside?!"

"Because I'm in charge of securing the Wembley Stadium tonight, and frankly I'll avert my eyes from a few Russians pressing their ear to the keyhole if I can prevent 90,000 drunk football fans from rioting should London lose the World Cup."

When Holmes did not appear to understand, Mycroft sighed wearily and plucked a magazine from the coffee table. "Don't you _read?_ "

"I don't follow celebrity gossip." said Holmes sulkily, hating that his brother had scored a point. Beside a column of article titles exclaiming the World Cup event, contrasting British goalies with their Russian counterparts, Evgeny Onegin graced the cover of GQ. Trim, tousle-haired, elegant with his sleeves rolled back and jacket slung carelessly over one shoulder, his mouth curled in a practiced leer that made Holmes' insides squirm.

"Isn't this the mayor's job?" said Holmes, idly flipping thru the pages.

"Not if someone plants a bomb in the crowd," said Mycroft, shuffling behind his desk, "Then it becomes domestic terrorism, and falls to me."

Holmes scanned the main article. The names of several fashionable young ladies sprang up, a trail of broken hearts that Onegin had left behind upon leaving home to represent Putin's interests during the football match. After admiring photos of the man's Saint Petersberg estate, complete with a private stable and bedrooms furnished with enough satin to outfit a Turkish harem, Holmes had to admit Onegin had a certain flare.

"Will there be a bomb?"

"Probably not," said Mycroft, "But it's too big of a target not to be a temptation for someone."

"Let me help," Holmes pleaded, "Why do I have to go to this ridiculous man's party?"

"Because the invitation is in my name, and some very Royal personages would prefer that we not offend the Russian ambassador during one of the most lucrative and internationally sensitive sporting events in this decade."

Holmes tapped his knee, and Mycroft's cell phone buzzed. "So I'm going as you."

"Don't strain yourself," said Mycroft, lifting his phone to take the call, "People will think I'm losing my touch."

(*)

Holmes returned hours later to an empty flat. He'd been making inquiries into the local business community to confirm his theory, and having been proven right, that over a dozen establishments had mysteriously swapped owners only hours after the original proprietor's death, he closed the door and called out for John.

"Put on the kettle!" he said excitedly, "We've got work tonight and I need to run some ideas past you!"

He words fell on an empty bedroom as he peered inside. "John?"

His hand still on the doorknob, he looked around the room and noticed the closet ajar, a dusty garment bag unzipped and laid across the bed with the wire hanger sticking halfway out.

"Where has he gone to?" he asked no one, turning to examine the living room. John's laptop lay on the table beside a hairbrush, where he had no doubt inspected his reflection in the computer screen while looking up directions for whatever event had required him to arrive in formal-wear. Holmes racked his brains, did John even own a suit?

He hacked the password in less then ten seconds ("Really John, 'pocket$e$'..."), and found an open browser with GoogleMaps asking if he would like to print directions with or without text?

"Hell," he said, leaping up from the chair and rushing from the apartment, "Can't you stay out of trouble for one day?"

(*)

"More Chimay?"

"Please." said John, smiling as Onegin snapped his fingers for the concierge to bring another bottle. The ballroom was crammed, the ladies constantly lifting their expensive gowns to avoid being stepped on by their dance partners, but their table was given a respectful distance.

Onegin trailed down John's army uniform with slow eyes, admiring the crisply ironed shirt, the knotted tie at his throat, shoulders filling his pale brown jacket with the blue edge of a lovebite peaking from the collar. When he addressed John, he did not have to raise his voice, for the room recognized a predator in it's native habitat, and instinctively paused their conversation whenever Onegin spoke.

"You know it's my birthday."

"Really?" said John, as a dour man in white gloves materialized with a corkscrew. John's cellphone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it.

"Mm," said Onegin, taking his glass, "I'm hosting a party on every continent for the next week."

"Every continent?" John asked, laughing.

"Well, not Antarctica obviously," Onegin conceded, leaning in his chair, "Though Elephant Island has a certain naive charm..."

"You have friends in all these places?"

"I have _estates_ in all these places," said Onegin, pleased at John's surprise, "You wouldn't believe how many palaces they've got in North India, they're practically _giving_ them away."

"Must be a difficult life."

Onegin looked down at his drink, a hint of melancholy in his smile. "It's actually quite ordinary. I made some enemies in Saint Petersburg, and I've had to retire to the country to avoid scrutiny. The capitol keeps me busy, but traveling alone can be...wearing."

"I'm sure," said John, wistfully imagining all the fantastic places he would never visit, "Well if you're staying in London for a few days, I'd be glad to show you the better sights-"

"Would that I could," said Onegin, running his finger along the lip of his glass, "Unfortunately my train leaves tomorrow."

"Ah." said John, looking down in disappointment.

"And you must have pressing business of your own, Doctor." said Onegin carefully.

"Uh, well," John began, a little embarrassed, "I've been discharged, this leg of mine you see..."

Onegin smiled, the crowd suddenly picking up speed as the band picked up a popular tune. "Oh I love this song," said Onegin, draining his glass, "Come with me, it's been an age since I've heard this one."

John stared at his proffered hand. "Oh no," he protested, as he was dragged from his chair, "I''m sorry, but I don't dance..."

(*)

Holmes' taxi pulled away right as the song began. The doorman frowned at his street clothes, but upon seeing the invitation shrugged and unclasped the velvet rope hanging across the entrance.

"Take your coat?" asked the boy inside.

"No thanks, I won't be long." said Holmes, as he dashed down the hallway, candles flickering above antique chairs lining one wall. He touched the gun in his coat and prayed there would be no security tonight.

He turned the corner, mentally rehearsing the speech he would give to John for not answering his cellphone, and stopped dead, all the blood rushing to his face.

Despite the extra space given them by the other dancers, the two men stood very close together, John's arms by his side while the other man snaked an arm around his waist. The music was too loud to overhear their conversation, but Onegin's lips parted in a knowing smile, leaning in to whisper something in John's ear that made him close his eyes. He placed a hand over Onegin's heart, but didn't push very hard.

 _Don't do anything stupid,_ Mycroft's voice whispered in his head, his hands flexing involuntarily as guests stopped to stare at his cheap suit, _Wars are not in the budget for this year._

John swayed drunkenly, too light-headed to stop what was coming, and offered little resistance when Onegin took his face in his hand.

There was a frozen moment when all of the previous evening swept across Holmes' vision, for he was desperate to find the logical explanation for John's sudden change in behavior. Why now? John wouldn't leave the flat without him, Holmes hadn't been gone so long...

 _That's it._ he realized dismally. He hadn't stayed. John had fallen asleep, after a questionable series of events, and awoken to an empty bed. No note, no indication of his return. Holmes had simply left.

And though he pushed and twisted and trampled his way across the room, the dancers pressed in at all sides in an ocean of perfumed limbs, and he was only halfway thru when Onegin inclined his head to one side, their bodies flush together and the corners of his mouth tilted up in cruel victory, and kissed John.

(*)

Onegin pulled away, savoring the look on John's face. "The train for Paris leaves at ten tomorrow," Onegin said softly, "Will you come?"

John's mouth burned. He had been so angry at Holmes that morning, so eager to assert his independence when the invitation had been delivered to his front door, but this was hardly better. He started to speak, but before he could reply Onegin was pushed aside and someone cracked a fist across his jaw.

"Oh hell, are you alright?" John asked, glancing from Onegin to his attacker and stopping short. The band floundered to a halt, and one by one everyone turned toward the three figures in the center of the room, watching but not daring to offer assistance.

Onegin lay sprawled, surprised as he touched his mouth and came away bloody. He tried to stand, but a muddy shoe pressed against his chest, his eyes crossing on the tip of a gun barrel floating inches from his face.

"Mister Onegin," said Holmes, drawing back the hammer," I challenge you...to a _duel_."


	9. Ch. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: In Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", the hero shoots his best friend Lensky in a duel and exiles himself from society for ten years.
> 
> The song is "Guilty" by Al Bowlly.

Holmes pushed John out the front door, the wind biting into his rumpled collar. Passersby darted from one building to the next, but never lingered long outdoors, and they had the street to themselves.

"What are you doing here?" Holmes demanded, eyeing John's uniform.

John set his teeth. "I was invited."

"How?"

"When I woke up, someone came to the door and gave me this," said John, pulling papers from within his coat, Onegin's coat of arms sealing the envelope, "It had both our names."

"Why didn't you answer your phone?"

John looked up at the ribbon of sky between buildings, weary, and puffed his breath into the chill night air.

"Onegin is dangerous," he said, pulling John into a stone doorway to whisper, "He's gone to a great deal of trouble to block the narcotic market in London in order to introduce his own drug."

"Have you told Mycroft?"

"Mycroft already knows, it's not his concern."

"Then if Mycroft doesn't care...look," he said, his expression softening, "Onegin's leaving the country tomorrow. This duel, let it go."

John was very close, more then a little drunk, and Holmes hadn't bothered with the top two buttons of his shirt. John leaned in, his face a mixture of annoyance and gratitude for being dragged outside, and his breath skated across Holmes' collarbone.

But Holmes noticed nothing, tapping his fingers against his mouth and staring at Onegin's building. "He knows things, and I can't figure how he knows them," he said, "We'll have to find another way inside, too many witnesses around the front entrance."

"Fine," said John, turning his palm up, "Give me your gun."

Holmes stared at his hand. "I need it."

"Why?"

 _Because Onegin's connected to the mad vision I had last night,_ he thought, _Because he's killed a lot of people and I want to put the fear into him._

_Because he kissed you._

"I won't have you kill a man," John pressed on, "Not when it's for personal reasons."

Holmes said nothing. A few blocks away someone set off some fireworks, and the light swam across one side of John's face like little red fishes.

"Look, a bunch of the clinic staff are watching the game at Kilkenny's," said John, stuffing his hand in his pocket and feeling faintly ridiculous in the uniform, "If you need me for anything, later on..."

Cab headlights swung around the corner, their shadows sliding across the brickwork, and pulled up beside the two men. When Holmes did not meet his eye, John turned on his heel and stepped into the car. He did not invite Holmes to join him, nor did Holmes follow. Holmes stared a while at the street lamp, the cone of light the only solid object in that darkened street, and waited until the taxi rolled away.

(*)

Onegin listened with one ear pressed against the inside of the door. He took a final drag from a cigarette, the smoke coiling lazily from his mouth like milk in troubled water, and dropped it on the floor. As he walked back toward the party, the street noise of cars and pop music faded like someone turning a dial, a grandfather clock chiming halfway down the hall, and by the time he set his hand on the door handle the band had started a forlorn number.

_Maybe I'm wrong, dreaming of you...  
Dreaming the lonely night through...  
If it's a crime, then I'm guilty...  
Guilty of loving you..._

A young waiter plucked empty glasses off Onegin's table and arranged them on a tray. His face was soft, with touches of lavender around the eyes, his hair in a stiff lacquered part. He pulled a chair out, but Onegin waved it away. The boy smiled, wiping the table with a tea cloth and setting down a fresh glass.

Onegin looked around, making brief eye contact with each guest until he had their attention. As the song ended, the room made a space for him, hollowing out until all the dancers were pushed against the walls.

"Boy," said Onegin, lifting his champagne flute, "I don't need this table anymore."

The waiter bobbed his head and signaled to another man to help him.

"No," said Onegin, placing a warm hand on his arm, "I only need you."

The boy smile wavered, feeling the eyes of the room on him. Setting his tray aside, he lifted one end and carefully dragged the table toward the bar. He managed about four feet when his shoe caught on a steel grate that hadn't been there yesterday, and when he stepped away the grate shifted noisily.

Onegin reached for a strawberry on the next table and watched it fizzle as he dropped it into his glass.

"I'll get that sir," he said, bending over, "Maintenance must not have screwed it in all the way."

Onegin watched the back of his head, sucking the sweet red stain from his fingers. From this angle the boy reminded him of Lensky, and he reflected on how much had changed since his youth. Times were, you had to make an appointment to kill a man.

The boy lifted the grate, and peered into the darkness as Onegin plucked a champagne bottle from an ice bucket. "Did you hear that sir?" the boy whispered, leaning in, "I think there's someone down there."

"Yes. Crocadeel," said Onegin, his voice hollow, "Though his true name has not been spoken aloud since pre-Adamite times."

The boy did not turn around, squinting as the basement smell hit him, a mix of sulfur and the open grave. "You're his friend?"

"No," said Onegin, lifting the bottle until it glinted green in the candlelight, "I am his John the Baptist."

And swinging it in a wide arc, he cracked the back of the boy's head. He flopped over double, blood dribbling down his chin as he struggled on all fours, and his body suddenly felt thick and heavy.

Onegin lowered himself into his chair as two men rushed in with bundles under their arms. "Don't let him bleed on the carpet." he said distantly.

The boy tried to lift his head, but one of the men planted his feet between his shoulder blades, while the other pulled out a length of Saran wrap and stretched it over the boy's face. For a moment it looked as if he had a flower in his mouth, but then he tried to breath in and the blood smeared until he was unrecognizable.

Onegin looked on indifferently until the boy's head was completely cocooned, folding his hand over the gun tucked into his waistband. Knowing Holmes, he had only minutes until the detective manged to breach security and start trouble, and he stood up to leave.

Seeing him approach, his men stood aside to let him examine the sacrifice. Onegin tilted his head, twisting the glass stem between his fingers. The boy was still kicking, but his face was a red horror, the back of his skull soft to the touch.

With an appraising sniff, Onegin decided he did not resemble Lensky after all, and gave the boy a kick that sent him hurtling down the open hatch. _Not worth the bullet._ he thought.

"Clean this up," he said, tossing the champagne bottle in after the boy, "I'm going to check on Mister Holmes."

(*)

Holmes eyed the service entrance, where two guards stood. Expensive cars lined one side of the street, and Holmes walked toward one at random, staggering slightly as if drunk.

"Here, hold up," said one of them, as Holmes stumbled onto his arm, "Should you be driving?"

"Thanks, but I'll be getting along now." said Holmes, as his fist connected under the man's chin. He slumped inside his uniform against the brickwork, just as the second guard clipped Holmes' ear with a truncheon. He would taste blood the next time he brushed his teeth, but Holmes shook it off and landed three neat punches in the man's gut, so fast they sounded like a single blow.

He waited til the guard was on his knees, choking for air, and whipped out his cell phone. "Yes, hello?" he said, once the call went thru, "With whom am I speaking?"

In a phone booth near 221-B Baker Street, Frenchie the street musician gripped the receiver tight. "This is, uh, Frenchie sir."

"Are my men still about?"

Frenchie glanced thru the dirty glass, where the Glorious Army of 221-B Baker Street, thirty-odd beggars with more toes then teeth, leaned against the building. "Yes sir, they's still lookin' to be paid."

"Tell them to come my way," he said, rattling off Onegin's address, "And that I have their payment waiting."

Hanging up, he dialed the next number on his list. The other side picked up before the first ring could finish.

"Ministry Offices, how may I direct your call?"

Holmes smiled. "Lila, my sweetling, is Her Grace working you late tonight?"

Laughter tinkled thru the alley, and for a minute they traded jokes about the royal family and other non-entities. The second guard tried to get up on one knee, but Holmes pressed his shoe to the man's shoulder and shoved him backwards.

"Listen, I know you're terribly busy, but I'm not by a computer and I need to check something in the plat map database, if you would do this poor soul a favor..."

He gave her his current whereabouts, inventing some story about a real estate purchase, and asked after plat map details of Onegin's basement floor. "Thinking about a new office," he said, kneeling on the guard's chest, "But I want to knock out a few walls to make space, and the architect needs the details before tomorrow."

"I can look that up...here it is," she said, keys clicking in the background, "Got a pen?"

"Just a sec." And pulling back his fist, he slammed the guard in face, blood pouring out both nostrils. The guard muttered a curse, but Holmes choked him off with a well-placed kneecap, and he went quiet.

"Go ahead Lila."

The guard continued to struggle, but was too dazed to shift his weight, and dipping his finger in the blood Holmes began to draw the map on the man's face. The lower level had a surprising number of rooms, and though the man had good skin Holmes could have wished for a better-behaved canvas.

"And put me down for a box of Turkish delight next time you're in Ankara, or Mrs. Hudson will write me out of the will," he said, putting his phone away and grabbing the guard's tie for one last strike, "Sorry about this, but I need your keys."

Some time later, Holmes descended a narrow winding stairway, his gun in one hand and the guard's flashlight in the other. The band music drifted faintly thru a ventilation shaft.

_Is it a sin, is it a crime...  
Loving you, dear, like I do?...  
If it's a crime, then I'm guilty...  
Guilty of loving you..._

The stairs ended in a drafty hallway, and counting the number of doors Holmes quickly calculated where the hidden entrance must be. Tapping against the wall, he found a hollow spot that smelled of fresh wallpaper, and cutting into the plaster with his pocket-knife he teased out the edge of the hidden door and slipped inside.

A censer sat burning on a great stone altar. It stood in a cavernous chamber, illuminated by a strip of light coming from a grate in the ceiling and a phosphorescent glow that pulsed in the very stones. There were no other doors, and the floor was bare except for a great ragged hole in the floor, from which black water rose an inch or two below the rim.

Pale figures sat etched against the darkness, and he found they were men crouching in alcoves carved into the stone, their naked bodies shiny with white scales. Bankers, statesmen, a number of whom Holmes had seen in the news. But if the acolytes sensed him, their fixed stares gave no hint of recognition.

He knelt by the hole and traced a dark outline in the floor, an arch of blood where someone had fallen from a great height, and long serpentine tracks where a second party had dragged their victim into the water. A chill breeze lifted the hairs on the back of his neck, and his flashlight sputtered weakly.

"Are you down there?" he said, as he unbuttoned his shirt sleeve.

Removing his jacket, he pushed up his sleeve and lowered his hand into the water, slowly slowly until he was elbow-deep and his fingertips began to tingle with the cold. After scrabbling about and finding nothing, he pulled out and contemplated his next move. The guards had surely been noticed by now, and he didn't want to leave without some proof of Onegin's crimes. Drug-peddling was one thing, the former USSR was the crown jewel of free enterprise these days, but this, whatever it was...

He thought of John, and how difficult it had been to reveal an inch of skin. This, this was easy, and pulling his shirt over his head, he folded it neatly and set to work unlacing his shoes. When he finished undressing and everything lay in a pile, he blinked at the grate in the ceiling.

He could hear the clink of glasses and the staccato beat of women dancing on a tiled floor. He gave himself a moment to wonder if John was having a good time without him, then swung his legs into the water.

Cold numbed his body as he submerged himself in the icy depths, his eyes darting this way and that in the impenetrable darkness with one hand still holding onto the edge of the stone floor. He did not like to think how far down the bottom went, or if he lost sight of the feeble light on the water's surface.

Something shifted to his right, and he twisted round as best he could. If he squinted he could just discern a silvery outline floating in the dark, a human body with it's arms thrown overhead as if to ward off an attack. Behind it was the source of light, rippling outward in concentric circles more felt then seen, as something coiled up the length of the corpse and crushed its bones like wet twigs.

All the air went out of him in a silent scream, bubbles rushing up the side of his face. Panicked, he pulled himself out, teeth rattling in his skull as he clutched at his jacket and fumbled for the phone.

"Yes he-he-hello?" he stammered, hugging his knees, "Th-th-this is Sherlock, I need to sp-sp-speak with M-mycroft, it's...hello?"

He stared at the phone screen. EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY.

"Dammit." he whispered, shivering as cold water pooled around his feet. He was too far underground to get proper reception, he'd have to go back to the street.

He had managed to struggle into his jacket sleeves when he heard a gun cocked behind his head. He raised his hands and turned slowly.

"Took you long enough."

Onegin grabbed a wet tangle of hair, pressing his knee between Holmes' shoulder blades until he arched back in a painfully unnatural position. "I thought you would appreciate a head start."

Holmes coughed up a mouthful of the Thames, studying Onegin's face upside down. "There's hardly a mark." said Holmes wryly, noting a purple shadow on the man's cheek.

Onegin lifted the corners of his mouth, then released him with a nasty shove. "I don't bruise easily."

Holmes touched his head gingerly, then pointed to the water with the other hand. "How did you come by that... _creature?_ "

"Do you know about me?" Onegin asked, his voice flat.

Mycroft would have laughed. Sherlock had never been one for society gossip, but he glanced at Onegin's mourning ring and guessed well enough. "Your friend didn't die," he said, "You murdered him."

Onegin lowered his gun, and gazed about the room thoughtfully. "For ten years I wandered, mad with grief. I admit, I went a little wild," he said, with sad smile, "But then I discovered him, and his small band of followers who had remained hidden far in the Northern wastes. After a time, he took me into his confidence, knowing I had the connections to safely bring him to a wider audience."

"Wider audience?" snorted Holmes, as he surveyed the half-men in the alcoves, "Presiding over a Cthonic death cult for eccentric billionaires could hardly qualify under diplomatic immunity. You'll safely hang for this, in or out of Great Britain."

"You think anyone could touch me now?" he said. Cruel laughter rang thru the empty chamber. "Every man in this building, including you, is guilty of treason. Once you've taken the drug, everything you know, he knows. Every passcode, every state secret, everything you ever loved," he said, getting up in Holmes' face until his teeth shown, "Is his to possess. Like turning pages in a book. And as his champion, everything he knows, I know as well."

Holmes tried to keep his tone disinterested. His army would be here soon, and a monologuing villain was the always the best stalling tactic until help arrived. "Why London?"

"A great sacrifice was required. It always is," he said, "Why else would your God allow the slaughter of so many innocents before manifesting in Bethlehem?"

Holmes remembered something Mycroft had told him earlier that day, and his blood froze. "The World Cup competition..." _John._ he thought.

"Now now, don't rush off," said Onegin, thrusting him backward with his fingertips, "It's already begun. That boy you found in the water was only a taste of what to expect tonight."

"I can stop it..."

"You won't. The game started half an hour ago, and I've already alerted the authorities to two bomb threats, an IRA splinter group, and a video of North Koreans burning Prince William in effigy," he said. He walked Holmes backwards into the dais, his footfalls echoing in that cursed place. "They won't have the manpower to hold back what I've orchestrated for tonight."

Onegin's eyes had a hungry gleam, and with his gun hidden beneath his clothes several yards away, Holmes could only rest his hands on the cold granite slab and wait for an opening.

"And what will you receive in return for this...divine reification?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Holmes echoed in surprise.

"No commendation, no promised land. Only the desire the to be near him..." said Onegin. He produced a small white tab between his thumb and forefinger, and held it up for Holmes to see. It glowed unhealthily, and yet Holmes felt his skin grow hot. "...and all who share in his dark eucharist."

They were very close now. Holmes tracked him with slow eyes as he weighed Onegin's strange choice of words. _That glow,_ he thought, connecting the dots, _It's not just a drug. He's been feeding us all bits of that creature._

"My offer still stands," Onegin whispered, tracing the wet curve of Holmes' spine, "Aren't you the least bit curious?"

Holmes' thoughts went to John, and he shook his head feebly. Onegin pressed his mouth to the line of his throat, and he shuddered with each unwelcome kiss. Weak from hypothermia and too little sleep, Holmes barely resisted, and Onegin grasped his wrists in both his hands to pull him onto the dais in a rough embrace.

Onegin crouched over him, the censer subduing Holmes with it's thick perfume. Onegin's hair fell softly against his cheek. "Will you submit?"

Holmes lay hypnotized. The chamber swam around him with Onegin at the center of it.

"We are the same. We know," Onegin whispered, pressing the tab onto the end of his tongue, "There is no greater pearl then a treasured secret."

He crushed his mouth to his, the tang of black magic between them as Holmes' weakened and allowed his lips to be forced open.

The drug worked fast. Time became disjointed, and when Onegin moved the whites of his eyes left trailing after-images, faint whiskers of light in the gloom. But instead of the usual prelude of hallucinations, the chamber devolved into it's elemental form, the mortar walls replaced by a cave ceiling, the burning incense a hearth, and the two gentlemen Cain and Abel, true brothers with murder waiting in the shadows.

"Now submit." said Onegin, softly at first. But he sensed some last vestige of defiance in the Englishman, and taking Holmes' jaw between his fingers, the other hand high in the air, he bared his teeth and growled " _Submit!_ "

Holmes closed his eyes, finally, and gave up. He could feel it coming, same as last time, the urge to spill everything he knew, but this time the brain-hack ran both ways. Everything turned a hundred and eighty degrees, and when he opened his eyes again he was...elsewhere.

He stood at a great height, he and Onegin, as the world turned beneath them, giants among insects. London was spread before him, and Holmes saw it as the creature must have, each pinprick of light the fevered brain of a cult follower, their thoughts as easy to access as the tuning of a radio. When he turned his face south, he perceived the massive stadium and it's ninety thousand inhabitants, along with the intentions of Onegin's men scattered throughout the crowd, their thoughts a drug-addled loop of dread and butchery.

Onegin was right. Who needed wire-tapping?

But this vision sparked no fear in him, rather he ached for more, and that realization frightened him. Carving trenches in Onegin's arms, he fought to pull away, wave upon wave of ill-gotten knowledge battering against him.

"You don't want this?" said Onegin, words smeared against his skin as he buried his face in the man's throat, "Because I've been wanting to do this...all...day."

He had tapped an unsuspected reservoir of need in the Englishman, as greedy as Onegin's, and even without contact, save for their mouths locked together, sloppy and careless, he knew they were both close.

Holmes looked up through his tangled hair, eyes black with loathing, his wrists twisting uselessly, fingers curling against the edge of the dais as his body strained against the knot coiling in his belly. Onegin caught his lower lip between his teeth, his own desire quickening. They wrestled for control, Onegin's knuckles drawing blood against the granite as both their bodies reacted.

When Holmes thought he could endure it no further, his brain hit a bliss point, and he gave a great bone-deep heave and came so hard that his body slammed back into the stone with a resounding slap.

Breathing into Onegin's mouth until he felt himself come down, Holmes released his grip, both men floating in the infosexual jizz-fog. When at last they broke the kiss, he breathed in fast, held it for two seconds, then breathed again, his heart hammering.

Onegin swept them both upwards, legs around Holmes' waist. "Come with me tonight."

Holmes tried to look away, but Onegin took his face in both hands. "My train takes me to Paris, across the mountains and thru every capital stretching to Vladivostok," said Onegin, his hair stuck to his neck in sweaty ringlets, "We'll fuck our way from sea to shining sea."

They were both panting, Holmes' cock softening in it's own stew and and threatening to revive if Onegin stayed near him any longer.

"Hear my counter-offer?" said Holmes, trying to sound steadier then he felt, "How about I let you stay in the city."

Onegin read the tone in his voice, and looked down his nose with a sly tilt. "But?"

"You have to find a new line of business," Holmes said thickly, exhausted and recklessly adding "And leave John alone."

Onegin laughed, and Holmes felt the cold muzzle of a gun beneath his chin. "You can't have both."

Holmes sat motionless, unable to think straight against Onegin's heels digging painfully into the small of his back.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way. In a better world we might have worked something out, but Moscow is run by thugs these days," he said, thumbing back the hammer, "It has become...ungentlemanly."

Holmes held his breath. His men were probably close, but he was out of time. He remembered John, asking to take his gun, and smiled sourly.

"What's so funny?"

And grabbing Onegin's gun hand, he twisted his arm down and away, the barrel jamming into his carefully tailored jacket, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet went straight through and struck a stone pillar, mortar chips spraying. Onegin's lips parted for an instant, as if he had just remembered something, and then his mouth filled with warm blood.

Holmes pitched him to the ground. "Stay there," he said, stumbling toward his own clothes, "I'm going to call an ambulance."

Onegin snickered, the hole in his chest giving an eerie hiss, and rolled onto his back. "Don't."

"You might yet live."

"I won't. So go ahead and drop another bullet in me," said Onegin, smiling with a mouthful of wet red teeth, "My love awaits me in Hell."

Holmes recoiled, taking a step back as blood pooled in an ever widening circle. From the black water came a sudden movement, and dropping the gun Holmes snatched up his clothes and made for the door.

From the hallway he heard men's voices, and turning back, finding Onegin to be senseless, he decided that the only way out of the building without arousing suspicion was to go disguised in the dying man's clothes. Their coloring was different, but in the dark, with the right tone of voice...

John will be disappointed, he thought, fingering the bullet-hole in the jacket, I got my duel after all. The blood had spread over most the shirt, but he buttoned the jacket over the worst of it, hoping street revelers mistook it for a wine stain.

The water sloshed over the edge, and someone...something rose up. In his report to Mycroft, he would later write that Onegin must have fallen into the well, thus explaining the lack of a body. When pressed for details, he admitted that he had been so preoccupied with getting to John, who was close enough to the stadium to be in the line of fire, that events were fuzzy.

Two skeletal arms, black with age, extended toward Onegin. The ribs had splintered on the left side, where the heart would have been, and they creaked as Onegin's body was drawn into a tender embrace. In his last moments, he turned toward the skeleton, balefire burning far away in it's sockets, recognition stirring.

And with a sigh of relief Onegin lay his cheek against it's boney breast, and allowed himself to be pulled beneath the water's surface.


End file.
